Improved powder for biiasting and other purposes



@ntmt @ftire g WILLIAMfH. JACKSONLOE SALEM, MAssAoHusnT'rs, ASSIGNOR TO GEORGE B. UPTON,

4 DAVID 1). STAOKPOLE, AND SAMUEL 'H. ooonm.

Letters Patent No. 88,171, dated Ma/rch 23', 1869.

mnovsn POWDER FOR. BLAS'IING- AND OTHER PURPOSES.

The Schedule referred to in these Le'cLe.-s Pawn: and maxing part of the same.

To all whom it may once'ni:

provemcnt in Gunpowder and Explosive Compounds and I hereby declare the following to be a full and corrcct description of the same.

My invention is particularly adapted to the more powerful powders use inJzlasting 'm mines, though it may, at times, be useful wherever powder is required. In blasting, the force of the powder is exerted upon the surface of the' rock or coal with which it lies in contact at the bottom of the drill-hole. If the powder fills but a small part of the drill-hole, it will have little surface to act upon. The efi'eotof this is to crumble or pulverize the rock or coal in the immediate neighborhood of the powder, instead of lifting it up iu masses, as is desired.

In England, to remedy this difliculty, sawdust has been mixed with powder. The compound, containing the same amount of explosive material, stands higher up in the drill-hole.- The powder is thus made to exert 5 its force upon a larger surface of the rock or coal, and the latter is broken and lifted up without being crumbled and pulverized as before. Blasting, however, as thus practised in England, is attended with a new difficulty. The sawdust continues to burn and smoke after the explosion of the powder with which it is mixed.

'This continued smoking and burning is prevented by my invention.

To prepare the new explosive compound, which I wish to secure by Letters Patent, I dissolve a nitresalt or a,chlo1ine-salt in water, and in the solution I saturate finely-ground tan-bark, sawdust, or other vegetable fibre substantially the same.

I prefer bank which has been used by the tanner,

since the operation of tanning has drawn from it salts which might prevent it burning freely.

The salts I have used, have been nitrate of potash and chlorate of potash.

This saturated vegetable fibre, when dried, I add to and mix with any of the powders now in use, in required proportions. The proportions may be varied, foe-di 'erent kinds-of work,:and win bedetefmined by the extent of surface upon which it is desired to exert a given amount of force, greater surface requiring more of the saturated vegetable fibre.

The saturated tan-bark, 8w, prepared as above, may be added to the ingredients of which the powder is to be-composed when they are put together, and be mixed in with them. i

I prefer that the solution in which the vegetable fibre is to be saturated shall be a saturated solution. The solution may also be prepared by dissolving both nitre and chlorine-salts in the same water, if desired. A stronger solution will be thus obtained, since water saturated with one salt, is equally powerful, with pure water, to take up the other.

What I claim, and desire to secure out, isp The combination of gunpowder or other explosive compound with vegetable fibre, prepared asabove described, for the purpose specified.-

The above specification of my said invention, signed and witnessed at Boston, this 9th day of February, A. D. 1869'. 4

W. H. JACKSON.

by Letters Pat- Witnesses:

GHAUNOEY SMITH, WILLIAM W. Swan. 

